Information for

You are here

Waterloo student wins Grand Prize at Ontario Japanese Speech Contest

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Working with Renison's Culture and Language Studies department, a University of Waterloo student has won the Grand Prize at the 36th annual Ontario Japanese Speech Contest.

On March 3, 2018 Ellie Li, a first-year student at the University of Waterloo, won the top prize in the Intermediate category for her speech "To be happy, be in distress!?" held at the University of Toronto. In her speech, Li spoke about how she pushed herself by comparing herself to her hardworking classmates and friends, while believing a busy, stressful life proved her happiness. However, after an incident, she came to realize that this is not real happiness.

Along with an additional prize of airfare to Japan, Li will proceed to the 29th annual Canadian National Japanese Language Speech Contest on March 24, held at the University of Alberta.

Li's Grand Prize win continues Renison's record of success in the Ontario Japanese Speech Contest. In the past decade, Waterloo students studying with Renison's Culture and Language Studies department have received the Grand Prize in a variety of categories seven times, with the remainder winning the first place prize.